Questionings Poem by Alfred Gibbs Campbell

Whence, O my soul! and wherefore, art thou come?
Mysterious inmost! tell me what art thou?
Where in the by-gone ages was thy home?
Where shall it be ages beyond the Now?
Wast living when the Architect Sublime
Laid the foundations of the Universe?
Didst thou behold this planet in its prime?
Didst hear the Sons of God their songs rehearse,
With which the boundless Vast re-echoed, when
His mighty voice from chaos spoke the earth,
Appointing it the dwelling-place of men,
Ere yet to them had oped the wondrous gates of birth?
And wast thou then with God, a part of God,
A part of that Great, Central, Living Soul
Whose sovereign Will spread all the heavens abroad,
Called into being worlds, and guides the whole?


If thou (as some philosophers would say),
Art thus of God a part disintegrate,
Imprisoned for a time in worthless clay,
But destined still to a deific state, -
To reabsorption in the Infinite, -
Why thus art fettered in the murky tomb
Of earth's soul-dungeon, where no certain light
From Light's Eternal Source dispels the gloom?
Is it for discipline? What need hath God
To learn, who is Himself the Primal Fount
Of Wisdom? To what end the weary road
Of life terrestrial, whence so hard to mount
To heaven's serener clime? Is 't punishment?
Hath God then sinned? And doth God punish God?
If thou canst fathom the Divine intent,
Solve this dark problem, and cast light abroad?